Presently, most of the houses in the unauthorised colonies, and village areas do not pay property taxes. (File)Following an internal survey wherein the Municipal Corporation of Delhi found that around half the property owners in the capital do not declare their properties as rented to save house taxes, it has decided to digitise the property records of Delhi with details of owners and whether it is rented to find those evading taxes.
Moreover, digitising the property tax filing system will be simplified and linked with Aadhaar numbers to increase collection, said a senior official.
The MCD earns around Rs 2,000 crore from the property tax and hopes to double its tax resources by increasing its tax ambit.
“For an average 2BHK house, tax in an average locality is around Rs 1,000 yearly,” he said and added that for rented accommodation, it would be double the factor for calculating changes.
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“The civic body provides several facilities even in unauthorised colonies like garbage collection, park maintenance, drain cleaning, mosquito fumigation among others for which a nominal amount is charged as property tax,” said another official. “And if you are earning from the property, better the reason you should pay the taxes,” he said.
Property division
Properties are divided into eight categories for tax collection in the capital — A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H — depending on their location. Upscale colonies like Golf Links, Vasant Vihar fall in categories A and B and localities such as Geeta Colony, Anand Parbat and Sheikh Sarai fall in the E, F, G and H categories.
He said that while the tax collection rate from commercial properties, both rented and self-occupied, is better, it is those at residential accommodation who mostly try to evade taxes.
L-G Vinai Kumar Saxena had earlier advised that all properties within the city limits, commercial as well as residential, be brought under the tax net so that MCD’s incomes increase, and it provides better services.
To bridge the gap in the tax collection system, the MCD has also fixed a target for the property tax department.
The MCD has doubled the target and set it at Rs 3,850 crore from its present tax collection of around Rs 2,000 crore.
A senior MCD official said this also means the corporation would be stricter in collecting its taxes and imposing penalties on defaulters.